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      Monday, June 19, 2006


catstuff
01:44 PM - 06/19/2006

The topic: Long weekend

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This entry is gonna be long. Lots of stuff happening, most of it cat related, but some not.

Friday night, on one of the forums I frequent, someone mentioned the FloorMate hard floor cleaner.  I think about mine, it’s been a while since I got it, I bet there’s a new improved model out there.  I do an online search and find one, the H3030 on the Bissell site. It has a special brush for cleaning grout and accessories.  The had two, a blue one and a green one.  Different product numbers.  And I see that they sell it at Home Depot.  I tell Brian, he said we could pick one up Saturday before we went to CostCo for our eye appointments.  Except he had some work to do beforehand, so we went to CostCo first.

I made sure the doctor knew I wanted the bifocal contacts, not the monovision.  I’m wearing a tester pair and I really and truly and honestly believe their monovision.  I would think if they were both bifocal, I’d be able to see equally bad or well out of both eyes at all times.  Not so.  My strong eye can see far away, my other eye, the right eye, is great for reading.  I don’t think I’m happy about this.  I have an appointment next Saturday to see how I adjust to the lenses.  If there’s not some huge improvement, I’ll make sure he knows I’m on to his little ploy.  I find it hard to believe he’d have exactly the prescription I need just waiting for me.  Grrr…...

And Brian didn’t need glasses at all.  His farsight is great without them, he just needs reading glasses. Like you can buy just about anywhere.

So, we leave CostCo, I need sunglasses.  We head over to WalMart, across the street.  We get sunglasses, then head on over to Home Depot.  I get my Bissell H3030 and we go back to CostCo to do our grocery shopping.   When we got home, Brian unpacked the car and I put stuff away.  It was pretty warm, so we kicked back for a while.  I finally got ambitious and opened the box with the FloorMate in it.  I still had the contacts in, reading was great, but I was having a hard time with the fuzziness if I wasn’t reading (still am).  I get everything out of the box and realize there are no attachments.  I get online, recheck the model number.

Duh. The different numbers weren’t for colors, they were for style.  I wanted the H3060, not the H3030.  I do some checking and see that the local Best Buy has the H3060.  I tell Brian.  He tells me to get it back in the box.  Wah, it’s a mess!  I even broke the styrofoam getting it out in the first place. 

Forty-five minutes later, the thing is boxed back up and taped back up.  We go over to Home Depot where he returns the machine and I check to see if maybe they’ve got the H3060.  Nope.  So, we head on over to Best Buy.  We get into the store and can’t find the H3060.  We do see an H3050 and it’s got attachments, this must be the one I want, just a different color.  I tell myself it’s a different number because it’s a different color (see where I’m going with this?).

We get home and Brian tells me that he’s not bringing it in until I research the difference online.  I do.  The H3050 doesn’t have the grout brush.  I want the grout brush.  I search and find the H3060 online at Amazon for $184.99.  Free Shipping.  We just spent $245 and change on the H3050. And it doesn’t have all the stuff I want with it.  So, I order the H3060 from Amazon. And lookee here, there’s a coupon for the weekend or whatever for an additional $25.00 off.  I got the cleaner I wanted for $85.00 less.  We just have to take the other one back.  It’s still in the back of the car.

Ciara has been doing a little better each day.  I’m getting her to eat more by sitting with her the entire time. And just because she covers it up after a couple of bites, doesn’t mean she’s finished. She goes back and eats some more.  And she’s been spending more time outside. She likes it outside.  I like it that she’s getting better.  Sunday morning, when I got up to open the doors for the cats, I grabbed a can of baby food and gave it to Ciara on the bed. She lapped about half and couldn’t reach the other half.  I got up and got a spoon.  When I came back, I tried spoon feeding a little to her and she ate a little more that way, then she was done.  I put the lid on the food and got back in to bed.

WHAM!  Super, major, horrible pain in the middle of my chest, under my sternum.  It was worse than any of the heartburn I’ve had recently.  Scared the crap out of me.  I took my blood pressure and it wasn’t bad, 133 over 85.  Pulse was 73.  So, I’m thinking to myself “not a heart attack”.  The pain got better as the day went on and we think I pulled something getting into bed.  You know how it feels when you’ve had a seriously nasty cold with lots and lots of deep coughing?  How your back and ribs just ache?  That was me yesterday.  I took some Aleve and that helped a bit, so we’re going with the muscle thing.

The pain didn’t subside until late yesterday afternoon (and it was like it had never happened).  I took it easy for the day.  Brian mowed the lawns, doing some edging that hadn’t been done in a month or so and I just kicked back on the sofa, watching movies.  At one point I thought I heard the doorbell and I got up to check.

There was a woman there I’d never seen before. I looked out the door to the driveway and saw a big truck parked there.  She started out by telling me that she was ready to cry.  Then she said she was a friend of Becky’s, that she knew our house from when Becky pet sat for us one time.  She mentioned Becky had needed a ride somewhere.  Anyway, she said she had a couple of cats and a couple of kittens she needed to find homes for, or else she was going to be evicted.  The cats were not hers, she thought they belonged to someone who had moved out.  They left behind this mom cat, kittens and this black neutered male.  Her landlord gave her two weeks to get rid of them. She had two kids, two dogs and two cats and he said that was enough.  She had the kitties in her truck.  I called Brian in, not wanting to take responsibility for this.  We talked to her a little bit, Brian looked reluctant, but she had a good story.  We fell for it, hook, line and sinker.  Brian said it was okay with him, but would I be able to handle it?  Thoughts of Ciara were in the back of my head.  I didn’t know. She said she’d tried to find homes for them, but no one wanted them. She couldn’t take them to the pound. 

We went out to get them.

All four were in one carrier.  When she told me that they were okay with her kitties, I told her to let them out.  She did.  The mom cat is a gorgeous calico.  The little female kitten is also calico.  The little boy is mostly white with spots of red.  And there was the black cat, a stocky round faced boy. We sat and talked for a while and she told us that some of her friends had told her to give them away at WalMart and she said she didn’t want to do that, because she wouldn’t be sure they went to a good home.  After all, you don’t know if they’ll get the kitten or cat home, get tired of it and kick it outside.  She cared that they get good homes.  Mom cat also had five kittens total. She found homes for two of them and was going to keep one. 

After I gave her our phone number, just in case she found a home for any of the kitties she dropped off here, she left.

During the course of the evening, I put temporary names on them. The first was “Ron Howard” for the little boy kitten.  Since he’s almost all white, with red spots and one of those spots could look like a red fringe on a balding scalp.  Then I came up with Lorelai and Rory for the females (a nod to Gilmore Girls). And for the black cat, the one who’d found his way under the bed, the one who nailed my hand when I tried petting him, I called “Captain”.  I wanted to call him “Captain Jack” but we already had a Jackie/Jackson.   Later that evening, Brian said he was okay with the names.

I tried putting Lorelai and the kittens in the big crate, but she was too upset and kept trying to open the door.  So I moved them to the bathroom. There was more room in there and she could get away from her kits, if need be. They’re not newborns, they still have those blue kitten eyes, but they’re eating on their own and using the litterbox.  She wasn’t happy being in the bathroom, but I didn’t want the kittens running loose in the house just yet, not without supervision.  And these cats are nocturnal, they aren’t on the schedule we keep.   She cried a little right after I put her in there, but she quieted down.

This morning around four, I let her out and I looked for Captain. He wasn’t under the bed, I didn’t know where he was.  I thought maybe he’d run outside when I opened the screen door.  I grabbed a jar of baby food for Ciara, let her lap at it, then closed it up when she was done.  I went back to sleep.  When I woke up at five thirty, Ciara walked over to me and she was dragging her back right leg.  It was completely limp.  Crap.  Brian put her on the floor and she was just having a really difficult time of it.  I already had an appointment for Bart (his eye is pretty messed up), so I called to check if it would be possible to bring Ciara in.  Sure, no problem.  I also made an appointment for the other cats for Wednesday.  I’m not sure I’ll get Captain in, but he did let me pet him this morning, when he was in one of the cat condos and not under the bed.  Pretty soft and a sweet kitty.  Just don’t grab him.

I didn’t call Becky yesterday.  I wasn’t going to call her at all, but I figured it might be fun to call her and give her a bad time.  I’m thinking I see her hand in the delivery of the cats to our house.

She knew absolutely nothing about it.  And when I described the kitties to her, boy was she pissed off.  She said the cats weren’t left by any neighbor. They belonged to the woman who brought them here.  We’d been lied to.  As a matter of fact, Becky is pretty sure Lorelai is the kitten she gave the woman last year.  From a litter of feral kittens.  *sigh*  She wanted to call her and give her hell, but I told her to please not do anything to jeopardize the cats new forever home here.  We will take good care of them and that’s all that matters.  We talked about some other stuff and it was time for me to get ready for the vet’s visit.

Ciara was first.  She’s put on weight. Not much, but she is gaining.  She had no fever. None. Normal temperature. Respiration is still high.  Vet checks her over, starts in with the FIP crap (at least I hope it’s crap; I’m still in denial mode) again.  He tests her reflexes of the leg.  None.  He squeezes different parts of it. She strenuously objects.  It hurts, yanno?  He scratches his head.  He can’t figure it out. He took more X-rays of her and they show no change from the last ones he took, back in April.  Everything’s the same.  He said this paralysis could be the FIP taking hold.  My head voice is screaming “SCIATICA!” because of the pinched nerve in her lower back.  He said that he really doesn’t believe that her leg would be like that because of sciatica.  I asked him if he’s ever had it?  Yes, but he had the it really hurts kind, not the kind that it really hurts and you lose all feeling in your leg.  The kind I had years ago.  He remarked on her rapid breathing. I told him she’d been doing that for months, that once she calms down, it slows down. He said “it must be from the pain”. Yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve been thinking for months.

He’s optomistic that she had no fever, her lungs are clear, and she’s gained weight.  He had one last thing he wanted to try.  He gave her a shot.  He said this was just a test, if it worked to let him know tomorrow and we could go from there.  He said if it worked, she’d be feeling much better tomorrow.  I wonder if it was some sort of muscle relaxer.

Ciara done for the day, I put her in the carrier and I got Bart out.  Bart’s eye looks pretty painful. The vet looked at it under a scope and said this was due to the herpes virus (gee, thanks NotWally, for a gift that keeps on giving).  He stained the eye and looked at it under black light.  It was awful.  The vet pulled the haw (third eyelid), showed me how it’s thickened, then had me look at little streaks of blood in Bart’s eye.  He said this was easily treated with steroid eyedrops.  Twice a day for a week, then I take Bart in next week for a recheck and we’ll take it from there.  There’s a chance this will be a lifelong thing with him.  The vet said that this had to be pretty uncomfortable for Bart.

So, we get home, I bring both carriers in and open them.  Ciara went into the garage, then came back inside and went into the carrier/bed I have set up for Lorelai and kittens in the bathroom (they were out while we were gone, she has a pretty safe place in the living room), where she’s been for a couple of hours. I gave her a little to eat, which she scarfed down. Then she made her way back to the office.  She’s not holding her leg as stiffly as she had been earlier and it has more movement.  I hope the shot puts us on the right track for recovery for her.

She’s such a sweet little girl.

Anyway, I think I’ve had enough adventure (???) for the rest of the year.

 



I can’t wait to see pictures of the new kitties!
God bless you and Brian for being so kind. These cats are so lucky to have you. I wonder what she would have done if you couldn’t take them.

Posted by Melanee @ Monday, June 19, 2006 - 4:35:21 PM


OMG! I just clicked over to the photo album. They are adorable! I couldn’t of said no either! BTW, I love the names.

Posted by Melanee @ Monday, June 19, 2006 - 4:38:41 PM

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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

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